Not Okay
by jacik
Summary: Post-episode tag for "Hathor", from Sam's point of view. Something Jack says has Sam very worried about Daniel.


*Not Okay*

Fandom: Stargate SG-1  
Pairing: Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill (I ship it, but this isn't really a shippy fic), Sam Carter & Daniel Jackson  
POV: Sam Carter  
Genre: Friendship & Angst  
Setting: Episode tag for "Hathor"  
Rating: T for mention of rape (basically the subject of the episode). Warnings for someone vomiting (but it's fairly 'off-camera', so to speak.)  
Prologue: Jack says the memories of their time under Hathor's control are coming back as the pheromone wears off, and Sam is suddenly very worried about Daniel.  
Disclaimer: This is the most emo thing I've ever written… also the characters are not mine, they are MGM's. Probably every D. Jackson fan has written their version of this episode tag, but here's my contribution to headcanon for a show that tends to gloss over the immediate after-effects of many of its harsher episodes. Forgive me, this is unbeta'd. Reviews are welcome.

****************SG-1*******************

Sam walked into the locker room, having spent an hour and a half writing the most complicated—and possibly the most classified—set of reports in her life. _No way the military higher-ups ever let on what had happened at the SGC the past two days; it would be seen as an embarrassment, a stain on the Air Force's shiny record. In a way,_ she supposed _, that was good for her._ _General Hammond might have promised her and Doctor Frasier commendation medals, but it was still for the best to limit the number of people who knew she had punched out a two-star._

"Hey, I'm coming in," she called out as she entered. The locker room was shared, but as there were a lot fewer woman than men in the SGC it was generally considered good form for the female team members to announce themselves. It was not unlikely for their male colleagues to be inside in possible states of undress. There was a sign available that could then be hung outside for privacy, indicating the room was briefly off limits to all but the female SGC officers. Sam Carter rarely bothered to hang it, being a fast dresser. "Anyone in there?" she called as she stopped just out of view of the lockers. "Women's locker room starts now if no one says otherwise."

"I'm decent." It was Daniel's voice, and she saw him in front of his locker as she stepped in. "Just give me a minute to get my things." He was hurrying, pulling his wallet and keys off the shelf, and not looking at her.

"Some day, huh," Carter remarked as she stood to the side.

"Yeah." Daniel pushed past her, rolling his eyes. He seemed to be in a hurry, and she stepped out of his way. "Have a good night, Sam," he called perfunctorily on his way out.

"Yeah, you too." He was out of range before she finished. _Eh well. She couldn't blame him for wanting to get off the base, out of the locker room even._ Glancing around, she realized that just being in there was giving her the creeps. _Only a few feet away was the spot where the hot tub would normally have been. She was glad the technicians had removed it after she had finished taking her samples. Hathor had filled it with her spawn._

Shaking her head, Sam, having quickly changed out of her BDUs into a comfortable pair of pants and a fitted t-shirt, hurriedly grabbed her own jacket, keys and small handbag before leaving the locker room in search of Jack. She hoped maybe he'd be up for hanging out—going out for a pizza or something to take the taste of what had happened to them out of their minds. When she found him in the parking lot on his way off base, he seemed eager for the company, and agreed to the plan.

****************SG-1*******************

Twenty minutes later they were seated in a booth at DiMaggio's, one of Colorado Spring's better kept secrets, drinking root beers and waiting for their orders. "Yeah," Jack complained, "Janet says I have to avoid—and I quote—'psychotropic substances' for a week. Until whatever that compound Hathor exposed us to is out of my system." He frowned darkly. "That woman is a sadist who won't even let a guy have a well-earned beer."

Sam laughed, taking a sip of her own root beer. "To solidarity, then," she said, clinking the pebbled acrylic glass against his.

Jack looked down at it. "Yeah." Then the look of irony on his face, which had at least held his characteristic humor, was replaced by— _what? Embarrassment?_ The look of shame was fleeting, and he cleared his throat. "So, the weekend," he said, a little too abruptly. "Any big plans?"

"Yeah," Sam said, brightly. "I'm taking Cassandra to the zoo on Sunday. Do you know, it'll be her first trip there?"

Jack smiled. "That's great, Carter."

"I know," she nodded enthusiastically. "She'll love it. You should see the way she dotes on that dog you got her."

"I have."

There was a moment of awkward silence between them, which Carter broke. "You?"

"Me what?"

"Going anywhere for the weekend?" Sam clarified.

"No, I don't think so. Just home. Doc Frasier wants me to rest." He tapped the coaster that wasn't actually under his soda. "Lots of rest."

"Well, then." Sam glanced in the direction of the restaurant kitchen. "I wonder how they're coming with that pizza of ours," she said.

Jack lifted his glass. "Solidarity," he muttered with a snort, setting it down hard.

"Colonel?" She returned her gaze back to him. Something was bothering him.

He shrugged, frowning, sipping his soda again, fidgeting his hands. "There wasn't a lot of that, that I can remember, Carter," he said, almost apologetically. "Look, pretty much every guy on the base except Teal'c was taken in by that—" he hesitated—"woman, and I'm not proud of the way we handled ourselves."

"You couldn't help it, Sir," Carter said quickly. "There's nothing to be ashamed of."

Jack O'Neill examined the ice in his glass. "I know that, Major," he said, pointedly. "But you can't blame a guy for trying." He smiled at her. "Especially letting you ladies unilaterally rescue our sorry sixes like that. We _should_ be ashamed of ourselves."

Carter grinned at him. "Apology accepted, Sir."

Jack grinned back, but his smile quickly lapsed back into a serious reflective look.

"Colonel—Jack—" Sam asked, gently. "What is it?"

O'Neill shook his head, ignoring her rare lapse into familiarity. "I was thinking about Teal'c."

Sam leaned forward. "You mean the fact that he wasn't affected with the rest of the men?—was able to resist? He is a Jaffa, Jack. The symbiote must have protected him."

"No, Sam." Jack shook his head. "That's not exactly what I was thinking about." He turned his head so he wasn't looking at her; so all she could see was his strong profile. "I was thinking I ought to understand him a lot better now, now that I've been a Jaffa myself."

"Oh." Sam sat back.

"But yah know?" Jack turned back to her. "I really could've done without that level of 'understanding'." He shook his head again. "Thank goodness where there's Goa'uld there's sarcophaguses. Sarcophagi. You know." He tossed down the last of his soda and sat back, chewing a piece of ice.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Jack?"

"Uh huh?"

"Doctor Frasier said you guys didn't have very many memories from when you were… under the influence."

O'Neill tilted his head in partial affirmation. "They're coming back a bit at a time. I guess as that—whatever it was—pheromone—leaves our systems."

"Oh." Sam looked at him for a moment, then went completely grey-faced. "Oh no, Sir!" she exclaimed, non-explanatorily. _If that was true for the rest… the image that came to mind still horrified her._

"What?" Jack replied, confused by her sudden apparent shock. "Janet said it's normal for things to just… start coming back."

"I've got to go, Sir," she said, mystifying her commanding officer still further. "He shouldn't be alone right now."

"Huh? Who?"

"Daniel."

Jack met the look of horror on her face with one of his own concern, and raised an eyebrow to encourage her to elaborate. "Sam?"

"You didn't see the look on his face when I found him in Hathor's room," she hastened to add. "He looked awful, Sir—drained—emotionally, I think—but still—well, miserable. I don't think he should be alone when he remembers whatever left him that way, Sir."

Carter's earnestness had her commander completely convinced. "Sure, go," O'Neill said, or more accurately, ordered, his dark eyes agreeing with her concern for their younger teammate. He waved his fingers in the direction of the restaurant kitchen and shrugged lightly, a mask for his concern which Sam could easily see through to the worry underneath. "When the pizza comes, I'll eat your half."

****************SG-1*******************

"Daniel?" The second-floor apartment was quiet when Sam let herself in. The key had been under the doormat, but the lights were on and she'd seen his car parked in the valet lot below. "Daniel? It's me, Sam."

It was possible he'd gone out for a walk, although exercise for its own sake wasn't something she thought the always-busy archaeologist did much in his free time; not when there were books to study and translations to puzzle over.

Sam looked around as she closed the door behind her, remembering the last time she'd been in the book- and curiosity-filled space. She hadn't needed to find the key under the mat that time; the manager had let her, Jack and Teal'c in as soon as he'd seen the newly-printed death certificate. The deceased had no expectations of privacy. They'd sorted through all of Daniel's things—packed them in boxes and moved them to Jack's basement while they tried to figure out if he had any living relatives—on Earth, anyway—who might want them. They'd come up empty, and Daniel, alive and well after his ordeal on Nem's aquatic planet, had been lucky enough to get nearly all of his possessions back; all except a few better-labelled artifacts of Earth origin which had found themselves part of a named, gifted art collection at the Denver Art Institute. If Daniel had been upset about that, he hadn't told anyone; probably he'd just been grateful his apartment hadn't been rented out to new tenants yet. Sam was comforted somehow to see the place put back together the way it had been—ancient bowls and figurines on every surface, half the wall space blocked by bookcases.

Sam ran her fingers across the row of dig journals that stood at eye height in the bookcase which served as the living room's far wall. She'd never told Daniel that she'd read through them during those few weeks, for the personal observations which were interspersed throughout the professional. The later journals, which mentioned the Stargate program—Daniel had apparently continued the habit of keeping his own notebooks on his experiences despite the lengthy reports he had to turn in to General Hammond—had been deemed classified and stored at the Mountain; older—Sam might say formative—materials were not, and Sam had taken them home with her. It had been a chance to better understand their talkative, yet occasionally very private, teammate; and to feel that, despite the fact that they had seen him die and knew, at least in their heads, that he wasn't coming back, some part of him was still close. Sam had never mentioned to Daniel that she had read his notebooks; introverted as he was, it had seemed like too much of an invasion of privacy after the fact. However, Sam had found that her perspective on his behavior—on what things were most important to him—had increased, and had grown their ability to work together collaboratively. She thought Daniel appreciated it, so she figured he didn't need to know the reason.

She paused and let her finger rest on his Abydos journal. It was thicker than the rest, a fact which spoke to the young archaeologist's enthusiasm when preparing for his first trip off-world, and it had been the most interesting—and the hardest to read. Daniel had been on Abydos for an entire year, and he'd documented his experiences with all the rigor of a trained anthropologist, which he was; and all the personal detail of the passionate human being he also was, describing the quintessentially new experience of living on an entirely new world; and the oldest experience of all—that of falling deeply in love for the first time with the woman who was his wife. Sam Carter, who had dated a bit in college, then found herself too busy with other things and too careful of regulations to look seriously for a partner, had admitted to herself somewhat uncomfortably that she had never been in love; that the words in the archaeologist's handwriting about the sun rising and setting by the shade of Shauri's brown eyes—the smile on her lips—were foreign to her. When she came to the part where he had described the pain of seeing Apophis' guards drag her away—then to see her as a Goa'uld host—to leave her behind on Chulak—Sam had nearly stopped reading then, feeling ashamed for reading thoughts Daniel had probably never meant anyone to see; feeling she didn't have the experience to understand.

The pull of curiosity and the little trace of the author that refused to let Daniel be gone had kept her reading, and had been her reward for doing so. "I am thankful every day for my teammates on SG-1," he had written at the end of that volume: "for O'Neill's capable leadership—I didn't think so when I first met him, but he knows how to keep his people out of trouble; for Tealc's firm courage as a Jaffa defying the entire system his people have been raised with and mired in; for Sam Carter's intelligence and willingness to listen. I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell them how much they have meant since I lost Sha're—the diminutive literally means 'Soul of the Sun'—and my world would be very dark indeed if it were not for the hope these people have helped me maintain: that one day I will find her and bring her back to her good father Kasuf and our home on Abydos." The volume had ended there, and while Sam had read the ones that came after, describing trips through the Stargate and new cultures met, there had been no further observations of such an unguarded and personal nature. It was as if Daniel had literally closed the book while he waited; but Sam knew he hadn't walked away from it permanently, or given up on the hope he clung to. This was just an interim.

"Daniel?" _He had to be in the house somewhere_. The kitchen was empty, a pot of coffee from a previous breakfast unrinsed. _Daniel drank a pot of coffee in the morning before he drove in to work and brewed another there? It was the first thing he always did when he got in._ There was a water-filled pan on the stove, but it was cold and looked like a half-hearted attempt to start supper, which had been aborted practically before it was begun. Sam moved forward apprehensively; Daniel's kitchen and dining area were too clean, too unlived-in; probably because he rarely cooked, and practically lived on base; but the feeling of emptiness tugged uncomfortably at her. _He had to be in this lonely apartment somewhere._

At the far end of the apartment, past the spotlessly clean marble-topped peninsula and around the corner of the dining area, was the half closed door that led to what Sam recalled was the bedroom. The light was off, but an edge of light spilled out from under another door—master bathroom? Sam pushed the door open and stepped into the room, the light from the dining room cutting obliquely into it. Nothing looked touched. The bed was made from the morning he'd last slept in it; a book lay on the nightstand, bookmark protruding from one edge. Daniel's glasses lay next to them. There was no sound.

Sam stepped over and picked the glasses up, turning them in her hand. _Why was he always taking them off?_ "Daniel?" she called again. "It's me, Sam." There was no response and she found herself holding her breath for a moment against the quiet and the dark. "Daniel, are you in there?" Two steps across the bedroom had her at the bathroom door, under which the bright knife edge of light slid out. Sam couldn't ignore the apprehension in her gut any longer. "Daniel, I'm coming in." Sam tried to ignore the fact that she was walking in on her male colleague's bathroom and pushed the door open, her eyes immediately scanning the room for—she didn't want to think through what she was expecting.

The sharp metallic scent of sickness hit her nostrils as she entered, and the shower head was dripping. The room's inhabitant wasn't in the shower, however, nor was he under-clothed. If anything, he was bundled up in a sweatshirt too warm for the heat of the room; and he was huddled on the floor against the wall across from the toilet. He was hugging himself into a ball, head down, and Sam couldn't see his face. Another person, and she might not have been sure who it was; but there was no mistaking Daniel's mop of hair or the set of his shoulders. "Daniel? Are you okay?" She knelt on the floor as she spoke. _It was a stupid thing to ask; she'd seen his face before in Hathor's quarters, and then, with what Jack had said…_

Daniel shifted but didn't lift his head. "Hey, Sam." His voice was calm but sounded like it took effort. He ignored her question.

Sam scooted over, leaned in next to him, hovered a hand hesitantly over Daniel's shoulder, unsure what to do. "Hey, Daniel," she said again. "Jack and I were kinda worried about you. How you were handling things. I'm sorry for just letting myself in, but when you didn't answer the door I just… wanted to make sure everything was OK."

Daniel put a hand to the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. "I'm OK, really. You didn't have to check up on me."

Sam shook her head, glancing around at the small brightly lit room. _If he was OK, what was he doing curled up into a corner of his bathroom floor?_ She sat back on her heels and leaned into the wall next to him. "I went out with Jack tonight, and he talked about what happened," she began philosophically. "Jack says the—I guess it's a kind of chemical amnesia—is beginning to wear off. He told me about what she put you guys through." Sam fell silent and Daniel said nothing in response, although she thought he shuddered. _Any emotional response had to be better than nothing_. "I just wanted you to know," she said. "I know something about what you went through and if you feel like it would help to talk—" As she was speaking she reached a hand out to his shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze. The effect was electric. He jumped as if she had stung him, shrinking away from her hand and further into the corner.

"Gaaah, don't—don't touch me!" The words were spoken but came out in a rush. His head was lifted and she could finally see his horror-filled eyes, unveiled from under his shaggy locks.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Daniel!" she hurried to apologize, pulling her hands back. He was shaking— _was it fear? Had she awoken some memory?_ "I just want to help. Tell me what I can do."

He rubbed his face with his hands, embarrassment rising as color in his face. "I'm sorry, Sam," he said, looking away—looking anywhere but at her. "I just—don't want to be touched. I just keep—feeling _her_ hands on me, and I can't—" he shook his head.

"Okay. It's OK," she said. "I'm not going to touch you. I'll just sit here, OK?"

He nodded, quickly, his face screwed tight as if he tasted bile rising. "Yeah, OK," he said.

 _Daniel wasn't OK, regardless of what he'd said. What had Hathor done to him?_ From what he'd said before, she had a pretty good guess. Sam was at a loss for what to say to help. As a woman in a male-dominated military, she'd fended off unwanted advances from men, especially drunken men, a few times; but she'd luckily never found herself in a situation where she'd been made to feel helpless to defend herself, even though as a woman she'd always been aware of the possibility that a man might be able to overpower her. She couldn't imagine how it must feel for a man, who probably never even considered the possibility, and then—to be so effortlessly subjugated to Hathor's will— _had he even been able to resist at all?_ She didn't know what was OK to ask, but it didn't matter because after a few moments, Daniel, never one to actually be silent, spoke up. He was twisting his hands in front of him, picking at his thumbs the way he did when he was agitated.

"No offense, Carter," he said, for some reason avoiding his usual first-name address, "but you could at least try to be distracting if you're planning to take up residence on my bathroom floor. Having a woman sit there staring at me when I'm kind of trying not to think about them in general isn't really helping."

There was a note of self-deprecating sarcasm in his tone that she thought was a mask for something darker; disgust, or shame perhaps? "OK." She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "Jack remembers being made a Jaffa. Says she used some kind of belt to do it."

Daniel looked at her sharply. "New Goa'uld technology?"

"Yep. I guess Goa'uld queens have to have some way of making Jaffa from scratch."

He paused for a moment. "That's not really helping, Sam."

 _Not talking about it wasn't going to help, either._ "Maybe I should call Janet."

Daniel shook his head emphatically. "I don't need one of her Air Force shrinks, Sam."

Sam took a deep breath. "Then why are you huddled on your bathroom floor?" There. She had put that out there. Daniel was reasonable enough to put two and two together and recognize he needed help.

He grimaced slightly, a barely perceptible twitch. "I have a weaker stomach than I thought," he said with a half-hearted shrug that explained the smell.

"Oh, Daniel. I'm sorry…" Sam said, feeling a sudden flood of compassion. Here he was, trying to hold together some sort of dignity after it all, but his own body was betraying him.

"I just keep seeing myself back there," he went on, apparently deciding there was nothing more humiliating to hold back. Daniel the Sharer was a Daniel she was used to and she focused on him fully. "I can't stop feeling her hands on me… smelling her, even." He shuddered, hard.

"I'm sorry for what she did to you," Sam said, sincerely wishing for once that she could put her arms around the young archeologist and comfort him. _The one time he looked like he desperately needed a hug—and even steel-edged Captain Samantha Carter could have given one—was the one time that physical contact was the thing he seemed to fear the most._

"It's ironic, isn't it?" he said, letting out a strangled laugh, "that smell was what she used to control us—I guess make us forget things. They say smells are the hardest things to forget."

Sam nodded. "I've heard that." Hathor hadn't tried her hypnotic breath-chemical on her; presumably the strong pheromone only worked on males, or else the queen Goa'old had simply been uninterested in the attentions of female slaves. _Was there a male version of this chemical the System Lords might use to control the harems of human women they probably had at their disposal?_ Some analytical portion of the back of her brain was dealing with that horrid thought by considering whether the Goa'uld parasites had both sexual and asexual reproductive cycles— _Apophis had a son, Klorel, but Hathor's eel-like spawn had almost certainly been created through some form of pseudogamy, if Daniel's hint about them containing his DNA was to believed—_ it was Sam's turn to involuntarily shudder as she tried to turn her focus back to what the young archaeologist was saying.

"…see how Shar'e could ever forgive me," he said, face buried in his hands. She had missed something crucial.

"Oh, no, no, Daniel," Sam hastened to contradict him. "I'm sure Shar'e would understand that nothing that happened was your fault. Hathor had all of you under her control; there's no shame in that, and Shar'e loves you enough to understand."

"Isn't there?" Daniel said with ruthless irony, withdrawing his head from his hands again; his eyes were red-rimmed and his glare more distant than from a simple lack of corrective lenses. "You don't know what it was like; why we didn't fight it. She made us _want_ her." Something in Daniel's tone sucker-punched Sam in the gut. _No, she didn't know what it was like; she'd had men try to seduce her before, but she'd always been very clear in her own mind about what she had or hadn't wanted; hadn't she?_

Daniel began fiddling with the edge of his sweatshirt sleeve again, a means of looking down, anywhere but at Sam; but she could see the pain-squeezed tear from the corner of his left eye as his face was turned in profile to her. "I tried," he said, his voice quiet even as it seemed to tumble out involuntarily. "I put my hand on her to stop her, and she just… _breathed_ on me again. And I—some part of me was screaming out the whole time for her to stop; that I didn't want it. But I _did_. _Wanted_ her more than anyone or anything." He was suddenly choking, gagging, and Sam knew what was going to happen in an instant; and had his head in her hands over the bowl of the toilet. The unproductive retching lasted a full two minutes— _how many times had that already happened that night?_ —and when it was over, she helped him scoot back against the wall, continuing to hold his head in her hands while he shook against her.

They stayed that way for several long minutes, the cold tile biting at Sam's knees as she knelt, steadily, an unwavering pylon in what seemed to be storm-rocked seas for her friend. Neither of them spoke until Daniel finally let out a shaking breath. "I'm going to be OK, Sam," he said, although he didn't move, didn't push her away; his voice was steady again. "I always am."

"I know you will," Sam replied. She didn't let go _. I know you will be_ , she added silently. _Eventually_.

****************SG-1*******************

Finis


End file.
